Note # 58 – Listening to the Universe

Have you heard the one about the guy who was trapped in a raging flood? He scrambled onto the roof of his house as the water rose threateningly all around him.

A guy in a kayak paddled by and yelled to him, “Buddy, the water’s rising, hang on to my kayak and I’ll paddle you to safety!”

And our guy said, “Thanks, mister, but I am a man of faith and I know that God will come to save me!”

The kayaker shook his head and paddled on.

Next, a motorboat putted by. “Hey, you on the roof!” the man in the boat shouted. “The water is rising! Swim over to our boat and we’ll ferry you to safety!”

But our guy said, “Thanks for the kind offer, but I am a man of faith and I know that God will come to save me!”

The man in the boat shook his head and sailed on.

Next, a helicopter arrived and hovered over the man’s house. On the loudspeaker, someone in the helicopter said, “Sir, we are here to save you! Grab onto the rope we’ve lowered and we will fly you to safety!”

But our guy was waiting for God to come and save him, so he waved them off.

Shortly thereafter, the roiling flood waters rose again, washed the man off his roof and he drowned.

In heaven, he appeared in front of God. He was pissed.

“God,” he said, “I have always been a man of faith and I believed that when I was in danger, you would rescue me! Why did you abandon me?”

God sighed a deep, beleaguered sigh. “My darling child,” She said, “who do you think sent the kayak, the motorboat and the helicopter?”

***

It’s been tough sledding in these parts lately – thankfully no floods that have forced us onto the roof — just the usual life stress but of course now with added pandemic stress. It’s meant that for the past few weeks, since I finished The Magi Were Morons, it’s been hard to settle down to write. In fact, I didn’t know what I wanted to write next. The idea of getting back to The Spaghetti Supper Sangha seemed, frankly, a bit daunting.

And to be perfectly honest, as much as I enjoyed spending November and December writing The Magi Were Morons and getting to know Olivia and Eddie as kids, I was not feeling in the right emotional space to head back to Stafford Falls.

To properly write stories set in my beloved Falls, I have to be able to be Loving and Wise — basically, I have to be able to write the character of Nana, but lately I’ve just wanted my Nana. I’ve been tired and stressed and a little disappointed with life and I’d been realizing how so many of the things that propped up my mood and usually bring me joy have been stolen away from me because of the pandemic. I’m missing the joy of being with kids and singing, the joy of making my colleagues laugh, the joy of a good hard swim at the pool or an afternoon spent wandering around an art gallery.

I was, in short, feeling rather melancholy.

And then our sweet little dog got pancreatitis again last month and I basically lost my mind for a bit.

He’s recovered now (and so, I think, am I — I’m feeling a bit steadier on my feet anyway,) and so naturally, my thoughts turned to writing.

In my experience, writing doesn’t mean sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike; it means putting in time, every day, at your desk. You put some words down, delete them, put better words down, delete them, sit there until you think of even better words, then type those words. You do this until you get a sentence. Then you do that about five million more times. (This is why it takes so long to write a book, by the way. All that deleting.)

But if you’re not in the right emotional space, all of this is even harder. As I said, to write Stafford Falls books, the most helpful space is kind of like the feeling you’d get if you were sitting in a wingback chair at the Second Chance Café, sipping a cappuccino, watching the snow fall and thinking about some good piece of advice that Nana gave you or the funny thing Olivia said.  Relaxed, content, ready to laugh.

I need to be living in the Land of Loving and Wise, but lately I am a full time resident of the Town of Quite Cranky and Slightly Depressed.

And then in the space of 24 hours, this happened:

The Kitchen Sink Sutra got a record number of page reads on Kindle. (Turns out that advertisings works, go figure.)

A book club possibility appeared out of the blue. (I haven’t done a book club in over a year.)

And then I received an email from someone I’ve never met who had just read The Kitchen Sink Sutra and who heaped so much praise on my writing that I got a little weepy. (I may or may not have printed it out and taped it to the wall near my laptop.)

All of which has conspired to make me think of that guy in the story who climbed onto the roof of his house to escape the floods and wait for God to save him. And it has made me think of God, (in my mind, she looks a lot like Angela Lansbury) sitting on her cloud, shaking her head at my adorable obtuseness and saying, “My darling girl, I sent you a book club, a record number of page reads and an email from a complete stranger full of praise — for crying out loud, what are you waiting for? Get to your desk!”

Off to write.

P.

P.S. Just a reminder: it’s a global pandemic. You don’t have to be productive. You just have to be okay…